As it turns out, Sony hasn’t completely closed up shop on the old “Spider-Man” series. While the Raimis, Tobey Maguire and, we presume, composer Danny Elfman were jettisoned in favor of a cheaper franchise reboot, they’ll be re-employing veteran screenwriter Alvin Sargent, their punch-up go-to guy for the previous three films. Sargent did uncredited work on the first film, but was credited on the second and third installments; his work evidently strong enough for the studio to bring him back again.
Sony must have Sargent on speed-dial, because he was already hired to polish the now-defunct “Spider-Man IV” concept. We’re guessing Sargent, an old studio hand responsible for films like the Michael Caine-starrer “Gambit” and the Oscar-winner “Ordinary People,” is more of an in-house guy for Sony than a writer-for-hire. His only actual credits in the last eight years were the last two “Spider-Man” films, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Sargent’s (unofficial) fingerprints have been on all sorts of Sony releases over the years.
Sargent is re-writing a draft already penned by James Vanderbilt, who previously brought us the screenplay for “Zodiac,” but seems to have made his name in the action genre with “The Losers,” “The Rundown” and one of the eight thousand drafts for “Wolverine.” We’re thinking upgrade. Sony wants to have the production ball rolling on “Spider-Man Re-Spidey’d” 3D by the end of the year, so we’re guessing Sargent is well into one of many drafts.
